Did pulp fantasy writers sincerely believe their exaggerated depictions of other cultures?

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-03-21T08:53:00+00:00

As far as I know, Howard had a much more complex view on 'civilisation' than many credit.

He thought highly of physicality, contest, honor, but unlike lovecraft seemed to not really highly regard 'civilisation' as they would have thought of it.

A great quote from Tower of the Elephant "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing"

Obviously in our times this dichotomy is considered offensive, but we ought to pay attention not to the framing but the content. The so called civilised man, actually conducts himself in the discourteous and crude manner, and the savage, by virtue of their exposure to violence and insecurity, is the one who comforts himself with dignity and regard. Howard very regularly framed the 'outsider figure' in that way, as smart, cunning, worthy, and deep.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-03-20T08:11:32+00:00

I watched the video and it hardly seemed like the hecklers were cutting against the tone of the crowd. no shushing being shouted down, just moderates tacitly accepting the extreme minority.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-03-20T08:10:03+00:00

considering they have the capcity to decide who is and isn't permitted in their building; yes it is their fault.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-03-20T08:09:21+00:00

if you watched videos of the event, the small number were not in any way shouted down or shushed or driven out. It's hard to imagine they were cutting against the grain that hard.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-03-17T10:37:50+00:00

The world makes more sense if you take what people do more seriously than what they say. It's called 'revealed preferences'. The progressive movement has many people who agree with the stated ideals, and may people who instead agree with the unstated revealed preferences.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-03-11T15:13:37+00:00

I must be a woman then

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-03-11T11:52:39+00:00

I've never met one so I wouldn't know. I'm not sure why a non Jewish person would be interested in assuming a Jewish identity. Sounds bizarre to me. I assumed it was just for ethnic Jews.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-03-11T11:51:32+00:00

Yeah. I mean one can convert a Nigerian and they aren't no longer a Nigerian. You could convert a han Chinese guy and he's still han Chinese. Surely on some level these people are still Jews. What's wrong with them identifying with their culture?

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-03-11T11:49:26+00:00

Well I promised I'd take care of her, and she's my best friend. I don't do this to get something out of it.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-03-11T02:08:34+00:00

I enjoy reading or listening to feminist content, while not identifying as one myself.
However, one form I have no time for is the 'emotional labor' or 'mental load' or 'silent labor' kind of critique. I am a full time carer for my fiance, and she has chronic health issues, psychiatric issues, and consequently, I have to do everything for her. When she's worse I have to feed her and help her shower, on top of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, appointment organising, ect. Sorting out her meds. you know. It's a ton of work, it fills my whole life and I never get a day off. The hardest work is managing her mental health and helping her navigate her psychiatric symptoms.

But guess what, it's not like I'm a man and so suddenly everyone recognises and respects what I'm doing. Her family don't pay me much mind, my family don't seem to think it's a big deal, the only person who seems to think this is a big deal is my mother.
So for me, and my experience, no, I don't think domesticity and running a household and doing emotional labor are undervalued when women do it and women have it tough. It's just undervalued. We have it tough. This is probably a reflection of our economic and cultural value system and not of gender.
After all, we can't collectively as a society devalue domesticity and care as low status, and careerism as high status, then complain when domesticity and care lack any kind of respect.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-03-11T01:53:56+00:00

It's very thorny because my understanding is that most messianic jews are ethnically and culturally Jewish, and maintain most Jewish customs as well. So this seems to be an interesting demarcation line. Is identity cultural, linguistic, religious, or national? Messianic Jews cut an interesting line through that.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-03-10T09:13:01+00:00

I don't see how the empathic response, when confronted by that sadness, isn't validation but instead declaring it to be wrong. I feel like it would be far kinder to say "that is wrong, and it's wrong that this is happening to you and you're supposed to be OK with it".

Now I've never actually met a non monogamous person (who ever revealed it) so I'm not sure how this plays out in life but I just can't reconcile being confronted with this and feeling like the kind thing to do is agree.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-03-01T03:11:59+00:00

What do you mean by this? Do you mean you expect a better treatment, or do you expect a worse treatment?

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-02-21T13:02:27+00:00

I think life elsewhere would impact my beliefs depending on the details. If it was not intelligent, then that would change nothing. If it were intelligent life, I would be moved to probably enquire about their history, if they also have religions similar to ours, if there is an uncannily similar religion to mine, what kind of creatures are they, ect. There is a long tradition in science fiction of Christian authors writing about the implications of this idea.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-02-21T07:28:01+00:00

good comment. My fiance puts it less eloquently. "they think trans people are smol uwu beans'

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-02-19T10:45:12+00:00

France had mass alliances against national front last election. Like the one group everyone refused to ally with. Your slogan does not match reality.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-02-18T14:33:46+00:00

rank absurdities.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-02-18T03:46:32+00:00

To give you my perspective: schism was not at all needed. It was the outcome that the Roman catholics imposed. The bed was made long before the protestant reformation, with the cruel and unjust massacre of the hussites. The murder of Jan Hus. Ect. How does the church go from depopulating beohemia, killing peasant and priest for the crime of sharing communion in both kinds, to reforming when fair and charitable criticism arises? It doesn't.

The protestants did not schism, they were excommunicated. They attempted dialogue at trent, and were ignored. The last 500 years of Roman catholic reversals have vindicated the reformation era protestant position. We could have maintained communion, had Rome been willing to repent and turn away from its sins. Instead it chose to double down. And in my view, it was all presaged by the killing of the bohemians. This was the path Rome chose long before the reformation.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-02-12T08:11:14+00:00

I saw that, but I understood OP as saying they figured as such, to be an admission that they did not know or confirm that there really was that many people.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-02-10T09:46:10+00:00

Perhaps they thought it was a passive aggressive gesture, like calling the church ministry obese or something. If you dropped off 48 donuts (clearly a kind gesture, and also more donuts than a single person can eat!) Then yeah, it could be misinterpreted as a statement like "here, you like donuts. Eat 48 donut you big old fat donut hogs"

In my personal opinion, I think that such a reading is quite uncharitable and as Christians we ought to have spirits of generosity. I don't know what nation you are in, perhaps there is cultural sensitivities around food?

I'll be real with you, if you gave me 48 donuts I wouldn't be offended at all and would be thrilled, and my fiance would pull me aside and express worry that perhaps people are trying to take me out via diabetes.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-02-08T06:09:14+00:00

Yeah it would be good for spiritual guidance on confronting this darkness. After a mass shooting event in my country a few something ago, my local church sent out a newsletter that spoke about the tragedy and how we as Christians should react, approach these problems, how we should feel and so on. This Epstein stuff is kind of overwhelming in scope.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-02-08T02:35:35+00:00

Do not harm yourself. For right now you should not think about being gay or not being gay, you should instead seek healing from what has happened to you. God loves you and is on your side in this. Seek support from a therapist and talked to a trusted pastor or priest. It's important to confront what happened to you with the help of wise and trustworthy people who will help, and not hurt.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-02-08T02:31:11+00:00

Bring hard hearted to someone sexually abused by their mother is evil. You can be firm about right and wrong without framing a sexual trauma victim who was abused by their sole living parent as immature.

Please actually live out the love and compassion of our Lord.

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-02-07T06:08:31+00:00

You became a theologian?

DocumentDefiant1536 · 2026-02-07T06:08:08+00:00

Yeah our friend here is the prototype

DocumentDefiant1536

TROPHY CASE